


The Gift Of A Storm

by Mrs_BlueLion01



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A alot of blood, AU, Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe, Any ship is possible, Blood, Drugs, Fights, Graphic, Gun Violence, Hostage Situations, Kidnapping, M/M, Mafia AU, More tags to be added on the way, Possible Character Death, Readers Interactions, Readers get to choose ship, Readers make decisions, Shipping Lance, Tag, Violence, Voltron Mafia, broganes, klance, mafia, not sure, sex scenes, shance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-06 21:03:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14065530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrs_BlueLion01/pseuds/Mrs_BlueLion01
Summary: Keith finds out the hard way that his older brother, Shiro, had been part of a huge Mafia for 12 years behind his back. After finding out about his secret, both of their lives had changed for the worse and they were both forced into playing along with one of their sick games.Lance had just gained the title of a General Surgeon after many years of studies and residency. When a patient is rushed into the ER of his hospital with multiple heavy wounds, Lance is the first to realize that this said patient is:1. On the brink of death and2. A part of the well known Mafia that he personally despises.Little did Lance know that because of this patient, his own life would change...but would it be for the best or for the worst?





	1. Because You Are My Brother

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo~!
> 
> I present to you all, another fiction from yours truly~! \\\\(^_^)//
> 
> This idea has been in my mind for quite some time but I hadn't been able to write it out until now. I know there are plenty of these kind of fics but take my version!! (Please...? :'D)
> 
> So, uh....I hope you guys enjoy this work of mine~! :D

If Keith could make a wish right now, he would've asked to go back to that very rainy day back when he was 10.

 

                                                                      ┍━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┑

_He remembered sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast with Shiro, his older brother, and their parents. The living room TV was on, the volume a bit low but still audible through the normal silence surrounding the four in the dining room, which was right across from the living room itself. Keith remembered hearing the forecast stating that their would be a major downpour of rain but he didn't pay much mind to it. He didn't really believe it because as he looked towards the kitchen window, the sun was shining as bright as it had been for the past week and there were hardly any clouds to prove the upcoming rain. So as he finished his breakfast, he leaves the table to gather his things for school with Shiro following right after him, him and Shiro having walked out without a single word from their parents...as usual._

_During the time Keith had been in school, not once had he realized the dark gray clouds swooping in to take over the previously clear blue sky, thus leaving him to stand at the entrance of his school alone with no umbrella. He watched the kids walk out one by one, taking shelter under their umbrellas or with a friends as they walked out into the heavy rain with their proper shelter, Keith having forgot to bring his own. He didn't worry though since he figured Shiro had one that they could share, surely he had heard the forecast on the news earlier before they left home like Keith did because his "Parents" weren't parents enough to remind their own children to protect themselves from the rain, so they wouldn't get sick... But he was wrong._

_When Shiro walked out the school, he goes to Keith to tell him that he didn't bring an umbrella. After letting out a small groan, Keith tells Shiro to call their parents to pick them up, god who knew how long they would take- But Shiro nodded his head. Keith looked up at the slightly older male with confusion evident on his face, watching as a big smile formed on Shiro's face before he tossed his backpack and Keith's on the floor, grabbed his smaller hand and yet again does something to throw Keith off by surprise as usual. He pulls him straight into the heavy pouring rain. He follows after Shiro against his own will, his hand still in his as they walked out a little further away from the school entrance. Keith had called out to his brother numerous times, asking him what was he doing multiple times to get no response. Instead, Shiro finally let's go of his hand and begins to spin around in the water, to stomp his feet in already formed puddles on the concrete ground and laugh._

_[IC]Keith simply watched on with a frown because not only was he continuously getting soaked under the rain but he feared that 1. His brother had officially lost his damn mind and 2. They would surely get scolded by their parents because of this... Yet there Shiro was, jumping around in said heavy rain with a huge smile on his face. How could anyone be happy with getting completely soaked to the bone and possibly getting sick afterwards?_

_"Come on Keith, lose the frown and loosen up! It's fun!" He called out to the frowning boy, who clearly resembled a very pissed off cat stuck in the rain with nowhere to go. Shiro rushes up to Keith and grabs both of his hands in his own and starts to tug at them, raising them up and trying to get him to twirl around but Keith just wasn't having it, having stayed limp in the others hands. "Don't leave me hanging Keith, you know you want to join," Shiro says with a small grin as he side glanced at him. Keith looks up to him with a raised brow, frown still in place as he was just about to pull his hands out of Shiro's but Shiro pulls one of his 'pretty please?' looks as he slightly pouts his bottom lip out to him. Keith being a kid and having only Shiro who he felt really cared about him, how could he say no to him? He lets out a low groan because damn that face!_

_But he gives in. He rolls his eyes before taking a small jump in the little puddle they both had currently been standing in. "Yeah, that's it! Again!" Shiro encourages before jumping himself, Keith jumping along with him and if he be damned... He actually... found it a tad bit entertaining. Keith's frown had slowly but surely disappeared as he continued to join Shiro in jumping in the puddles, his face slowly lighting up until the two were then giggling and laughing under the heavy droplets of rain._

_Keith knew the reason why Shiro had pulled him into the rain that day, he knew that Shiro knew he had been feeling down for the past couple of days. Shiro knew and he had simply wanted to cheer Keith up, which it clearly did. Keith had definitely cheered up and he could say he had honestly let out a whole hearted laugh like he never had before on that very day...but as always, Keith never had the luck or glory of staying happy for too long._

_The two kept at the playful run arounds under the rain for quite a while, until their parents car unexpectedly show up at the front of the school. The two boys come to an immediate stop with wide eyes, they honestly never thought they would actually stop by to pick them up. Shiro had planned on walking home with Keith instead of bothering their parents to get them after the jumparounds so he could cheer Keith up, maybe sneak into the house to change before their parents would get home so they wouldn't know what they had done...but Shiro plan failed miserably. The two boys go to grab their belongings and head for the car, once inside they sit in silence with their heads hanging low, taking the harsh scoldings from both of their parents._

_"Why were you two jumping around in the rain like that, you two know better than that! We can't sit around at home with you two if you get sick, we have work to attend to-!"_

_"Your mother is right, we don't have time to babysit you both. You two should be old enough to know not do something so ridiculous like that, you're not baby's anymore, especially you Takashi-!"_

_"You should know better than to do something so childish like that Takashi, you're 13 going on 14, what is wrong with you?! I can't believe you! All you had to do was wait inside but apparently you do as you please as always. You could've stayed inside and help Keith study instead of unnecessarily jumping around in the rain, he could really use the help since his grades don't seem to be improving."_

_The two boys simply stay quiet, not daring to look up or say a word because they both knew the consequences of "talking back". They both knew yet Keith was growing tired of it. He was growing tired of taking their parents insults, listening to them scold him and Shiro for nothing or for the simplest things, watching them scold Shiro on behalf of Keith's mistakes the majority of the time, watching them not give a damn about him and Shiro....Keith was tired of it. He was growing sick of it and as they continued to scold them, Keith's small hands began to tremble from how tightly balled up they were on top of his lap. His eyes began to build up with tears, the anger he always struggled to contain to in order to"Respect" them starting to quickly build up until he could feel it burning at his neck. Until he couldn't hold it in anymore._

_He finally looked up from his lap and began to shout at them. "Why do YOU care if my grades are going down or not?!" He shouted, "You never cared about me or Shiro anyways, so why would you care now??! Don't be a bunch of hypocrites!!"_

_"Keith-!" Their mother shouted over him, turning around to look at the boy with both shock and anger in her face. Before she could say anything else though, Keith shouts over her, "I HATE YOU BOTH, I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE!!"_

_"Don't talk to your mother like that!" His father yelled, glaring at the younger boy through the mirror. Keith had unbuckled his seatbelt and attempted to reach for the car door but was instantly held back by Shiro. He wanted out and he struggled against Shiro's restraint for that out, pulling and grabbing at his hands around him but Shiro didn't plan on letting him go, trying to calm him down and beg Keith to sit back down... And he does but not because of Shiro, but because of his father's words._

_"You sit your ass back down you ungrateful little brat! All you do is cause trouble with that damn attitude of yours, I'm sick and tired of it! I knew you were a bad decision from the beginning, I don't know how your mother talked me into this damn mess-"_

_"SHE'S NOT MY MOTHER, AND YOU'RE NOT MY FATHER!!" Keith yelled as he continuously kicked the back of his fathers seat angrily, the built up tears now spilling from his angry violet eyes. His father turns around just as quickly with wide furious eyes, not from the kicking but from Keith's words before attempting to grab at the boy._

_And from there, chaos began. There was spewing of violent words from their parents being thrown mostly at Keith and vise-versa, Shiro trying to hold Keith down with pleas and trying to talk reason to his parents, their father reaching his hand back to grab at Keith as his eyes were no longer on the road._

_Everything soon went by so quick after that._

_The last thing Keith could remember from that day was Shiro calling out his name with a terrified tone before throwing himself on him, everything going black afterwards._

_The next day Keith had woken up to the sound of a beeping monitor, all white surrounding him and when he fully came to after a while of hazy vision and dizziness, he realized he was in the hospital. When the realization hit him he had quickly sat up and began calling for Shiro, the young boy panicking from not seeing the only person he considered real family. Nurses rushed in to calm the boy and surprisingly one of the female CLA managed to do so, when she sees he was calm enough she answers his question about Shiro but also gives him plenty of devastating news at once. Shiro had lost an arm in the car accident they had gotten into, most likely trying to protect him when he threw himself in front of him and his parents...didn't make it through the crash._

_For the next couple of days Keith had stood in the same room as Shiro as he waited for him to recover, Keith only having scratches and bruises here and there but nothing to worry about. There was no one who could remove Keith from Shiro's side, Shiro the only thing from keeping the 10 year old safe and sane from everything going on, from what he had been through. Shiro was literally all he had... Until a group of people walked into their room, claiming to be from an orphanage not too far from where they were and were willing to take the two boys in. If they couldn't name any other family members that were willing to take them in of course but both boys knew they didn't have anyone else to care for them other then their now deceased parents... And so they were taken in after Shiro was healed up enough to leave the hospital._

_But Shiro had other plans._

_When he saw how different their life was in the orphanage a month later and how down Keith had gotten since day one in what they called a hell hole, he knew he couldn't stay there any longer. He knew that if they stood there too long, they would be put into or adopted into seperate homes and he didn't want that...even though they weren't blood related, Shiro grew to love Keith as a real brother and wanted to give the younger boy the best of everything, the best in life. So he planned an escape._

_After the head of the orphanage was generous enough to fund money for Shiro to get a temporary prosthetic arm to replace the loss of his real one and Shiro having went under the procedure of having it put on, he sneaks him and Keith out of the orphanage in the middle of the night. As much as this wasn't like him and the fact that they had nowhere else to go from there, he knew they wouldn't have much a life there. He was going to be the big brother he needed to be for Keith, no matter what the cost. He would do anything to protect him, to give and provide for him..._

_Even if it meant giving himself in to the hugest underground Mafia known and feared by many civilians without Keith's knowledge:_

_The Blade Of Marmora._

_Because the two boys struggled horribly financially after having abandoning the orphanage and hardly had any food to eat, Shiro didn't have a choice. The two boys having to result in stealing little fruits and small things to eat from time to time wasn't quite cutting it for them, Shiro couldn't let Keith starve and couldn't afford to have one on them get caught by any authorities during their thievery. So he did what he had to._

_Keith had only found out 12 years later when Shiro had walked through the door of their home limping and nearly covered in bruises from the skin visible to him. He had asked Shiro with worried eyes what had happened to him as he followed after his brother into his room, watching with a hint of fear and confusion as Shiro grabbed a large carrier to start filling it up with clothes and important belongings. He ordered Keith to do the same, Keith refusing to do anything until Shiro told him what was going on, his own heart racing with a lot more fear he had ever felt in his life. Shiro had slammed his hand against his dresser before shouting at Keith the same instruction while telling him he'd explain on the way out. Keith knew something was horribly wrong from the look in his eyes and the way he returned home, from the slight trembling he noticed in Shiro's hands, so he didn't push on and did what he was told....But they were too late. The moment Shiro opened the front door to walk out with Keith, he was forced to walk back into the house with a gun pointed straight to his head._

_"You really thought you were going to get away that easily Champion," The man spoke with a crooked yet mischievous grin. Before Shiro could say anything in response, Keith had softly called out to him with a strange tone to his voice. When Shiro had turned to look, Keith had an arm wrapped around his shoulders and a gun pointed to his head as well, a clear look of fear and shock in his eyes. Shiro froze as his own eyes widened in fear. "Think wisely Champion, you don't want to lose your brother over something silly as stolen goods, now do you?" The slightly older male says with a growing grin of his own._

_"Please, don't hurt him. He doesn't have anything to do with this, just let him go. I'll do whatever you want if you let him go but you have to believe me when I tell you it wasn't me-" Shiro had begun but he was brutally cut off and knocked out cold behind the head by the man standing behind him, having falling flushed against the floor. "Shiro-!" Keith called out before he was let go and quickly knocked out cold himself before he could take any kind of action against the mysterious men._

                                                                    ┕━━━━━━━♔━━━━━━━┙

 

And that leads to Keith's current situation: hands strapped beside his head and his feet also strapped down against a metal table in the middle of what looked like an old, run down surgical room.

After slowly coming to from the knock out, he began to slowly tug his hands from the restraints, confusion and fear rushing into him as he looked around his surroundings. He also didn't see Shiro and the thought that something terrible happened to him after remembering him also getting knocked out had Keith shouting louder for him, shouting for someone, for help. After what felt like hours but was actually 20 minutes, Keith stops fighting against the restraints but was nothing calm, his heavy breathing giving him away. He had no idea where the hell he was, who the hell were those guys, how dis Shiro KNOW them and he had so many damn questions but no one seemed to be around for him to ask one... Until 5 minutes afterwards the door to the room open. Keith turns his head to the side to see who exactly walked in, hoping Shiro would pop up amongst the people walking in back to back and he does but... Keith didn't see him in a very good condition. The man had way more bruises than before, now sporting two on his face and had to be held up by his arms due to how badly beaten up he had been. Shiro was also restraint with tightly tightened ropes around his hands and feet, when the two males holding him upright letting him fall to his knees with a pained grunt, Keith began to pull at his restraints once again but more furiously at the sight of a weakened Shiro.

"Shiro!" He called out before glaring at the people now surrounding him and Shiro. "Who the hell are you, what do you want from us?!" He growled but no one responded. Not until a man with slicked back purple hair, intense golden irises, wearing a purple button up shirt, dressy pants and a scar over his right eye walked in the room with a slightly freighting frown in Keith's opinion. He didn't look as professional as the clothes were meant to make him look due to said look but Keith didn't let this mans looks or presence overcome him. Keith found a lot of things a lot more scarier than this guy.

"What do you want with us, let us go!" Keith growled angrily, glaring at him. The man doesn't say anything at first, simply walking up to Shiro to grab a fist full of his hair and pull his head back to get a look at his face. After thoroughly looking over the semi-unconscious man, he let's go of his hair and looks over to Keith, Keith still glaring at the older looking man as he started to make his way towards him. "You must be the famous brother Champion never shuts his mouth about," He says with a slightly husky voice, disregarding Keith's words completely. When he makes it to Keith, he grabs him from his cheeks with one hand and tilts his face up to get a look at him as well. Keith tries to move his face from his grip but the man's hand tightens to keep him still, angering Keith even more if he wasn't infuriated already.

"You look nothing alike," He growls, finally letting go of him and backing away from Keith a bit. He looks to Keith, then to Shiro before saying, "I'll let you go when your dear brother returns what he stole."

"What are you talking about??" Keith asks as he let's his head fall against the table underneath him, his eyes darting to Shiro and says in hopes that Shiro was awake, "Shiro, what is he talking about?"

"I-" Shiro mumbles tiredly as he slowly lifts his head to look up at the man standing between him and Keith. "I didn't...steal anything..."

"Lies!" The man growled angrily. He walks back to Shiro to kneel down in front of him, bringing himself leveled to Shiros eyes with furious eyes. "We know you have it, we have PROOF that you stole it and if you don't give it back, we'll kill both you and your brother right here!"

"I said I don't have it," Shiro says right after him in a low tone, looking him in the eyes with the same furious look in his own eyes. "And if you lay a hand on my brother, I'll kill you with my own bare hands..."

The man then smiles in Shiro's face, a laugh audibly grumbling inside of him as he stands up. He then begins to laugh, the people around the room smiling and giggling in response. "YOU, kill ME?! Don't make me laugh!" His laughter comes to a halt as he looks to Shiro with a grin still in place. "You may be called Champion but that doesn't mean you have the actual will to kill anyone, you're a weak bastard-"

"Try Me," Shiro growled. There was now a look in his eyes that Keith had never seen before, a look that had chills go throughout Keith's body because...it wasn't like Shiro. It was almost as if he was looking at a completely different person and his heart started to pick up in pace because of it.

The room is quiet for the past couple of minutes as the two males stare at each other, the two not bothering to break until the man finally says, "Ok Champion. If that's what you really want, let's put you to the test."

Both Shiro and Keith didn't like the sound of that, the two males watching as the man looks to one of the people in the room and gives him a small nod. The other nods back before walking out the room, seconds later he comes back pushing a small cart with a large metal barrel, smoke erupting from an open entrance. The two eye the metallic barrel with wide eyes, fear coursing through them as they wondered what could possibly be in there that has smoke coming out of it.

Things weren't looking good for them.

"Let's play a game, yeah? A game that you should be very familiar with from your time with us," He says walking over to the barrel. Their eyes follow after him and they watch as he pulls on a pair of heavy fireproof gloves. The realization then hits Shiro, his eyes widening as he tries to stand up but is pushed back down to his knees but the two males standing behind him. "W-Wait, please don't do this, he doesn't have anything to do with this! I swear I didn't take it, you have to believe me, I-I'm being set up-"

"You should've been careful of what you asked for Champion, I like to make wishes come true," He says with a grin before reaching into the barrel and pulling out an iron rod. The very tip held a symbol Keith had never seen before but Shiro knew clearly what the symbol was, what it was for and what was about to happen. "W-What's going on, what is that for....?" Keith had asked, the worst case scenarios running through his head about what the red scorching metal could possibly be used for, even though he had an idea already. With the way Shiro's voice had shaken when he spoke, Keith had a feeling things weren't going to end well and he starts to slowly pull at the restraints once again. His pulling becomes more harsher with panic when someone walks up to him and pulls his shirt up half way, Keith's breath picking up in pace as he mumbles, "W-Wait, what are you going to do..? S-Shiro, what the hell is going on, let me go-"

"I'll let you go once I explain the rules and take you to the starting point of the game but first, I'm going to give you...a welcoming gift, if that's what you want to consider it," He says walking up to Keith.

Keith begins to nod his head, feeling his hands start to sweat up as the adrenaline of attempting to get free soars through him, his arms pulling as hard as they could through the cuffs tightened around his wrist."No, don't touch me, get away-" He says with a shaky voice now. Shiro attempts to stand up once again, fear clearly coursing through him and in his eyes but he was shoved back down, two heavy hands holding him down this time. He couldn't let this happen to Keith, he had to do something, anything to get him out of here-!

Yet he couldn't.

No matter how hard Shiro struggled to get free of said hands on him to get to Keith, he couldn't. He had no choice but to watch with wide eyes as his little brother screamed and writhed in pain under the scorching heat of the symbled rod, his cries echoing through the room and through Shiro's ears. Tears began to fall down his face as he watched the pained expressions erupting from Keith, his heart shattering into pieces.

This wasn't what he wanted. He just wanted a safe and calm life for him and Keith, he didn't think something like this would ever happen if he did what he was told, if he followed the rules with no mistakes. Yeah, he saw some pretty brutal and graphic things within the 12 years he had been apart of the organization and he couldn't deny being apart of some of it but never had he done anything to jeopardize his and Keith's safety. But he HAD put Keith's life on the line...without realizing it, not until now.

And that's why Keith had wished to turn back time. Under the excruciating pain he was under he thought that if he could turn back time, he could prevent the car accident. He could've prevented Shiro losing his arm, he could've prevented losing and killing more Shiro's parents than his own, he could've prevented them escaping an orphanage to live on the streets, he could've avoided Shiro doing reckless things just to give Keith what he wanted and needed, the pain they both went through...He could've prevented this, whatever it was. If only he hadn't opened his mouth, they could've lived a better life than the one they grew up in, the life that they were about to live...

He could've prevented it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo if you've read the tags by any chance (probably not but that's ok), it states that YOU, the reader, will be the ones to decide who Lance ends up with~!
> 
> How you ask?
> 
> Well, my dear readers, for those who read through certain Chapters will be provided a link to a poll at the ending notes where you can pick what happens in the next chapter. For example: Let's say one of the chapters ends with Lance needing to talk to either Shiro or Keith about something personal, something that's been bothering him for a while (sounds a lot like a certain scene from the show, am I right? Eh? Ehh?? ;D). In the poll, you get to decide who he goes to for that discussion.  
> Now that doesn't mean that instantly decides who Lance stays with, there will be multiple scenes where you get to pick who he goes to, where he goes, what happens, ect. You as the reader get to help create this story with your picks at the poll!
> 
> So I hope you guys enjoyed this little beginner and stick around for the story because you literally have the power to decide what happens~! :D


	2. Because I'm A Doctor

Normally on a Saturday night, Lance would’ve been doing something rather festive on his day off of work: whether it be going out for drinks with his closest colleagues and friends or attending parties thrown by fellow coworkers who knew how to throw a really good party. If there wasn’t anything fun and active for him to do, he would’ve most likely taken the day to rest at home while going over some materials he felt he needed to brush over for work. He would’ve preferred the latter options instead of staying in his empty apartment that was just a tad bit larger than Lance thought it to be before renting it a good couple of months ago, he would’ve preferred to do anything that wouldn’t have had to leave him stuck in his apartment doing nothing the whole day despite his crazy work hours and schedule. Saturdays were his day to let loose from all the tension from work, to think of himself and treat himself after such heavy work he has to deal with on a daily basis, Saturdays were meant to be spent like how everyone knows a ‘Saturday’ has to be spent.

But this Saturday…wasn’t one of Lance’s usual Saturdays.

Instead of preparing to head out to have drinks with his best friend since high school, Hunk Garrett, at their usual bar Balmera along with Katie Holt, a friend of both boys who they met during their residence days, Lance’s plans had been altered last minute. Midway into slipping on his favorite baby blue button up shirt while humming along to the song ‘Havana’ playing from his living room speakers where his phone was plugged in, his phone began to ring from a call. He regrets answering it without checking who it was the very moment his boss speaks through the phone, his happy spirit instantly disappearing when he was asked to cover his night shift. Lance could’ve easily said no, he wasn’t being forced or ordered to go in but there were so many pro’s that followed after Lance’s possible yes. Not only would Lance be getting paid extra for the day, obviously, but he would both build a good reputation for himself by doing taking over for his boss of all people and he would be getting on his boss’s good side, something that seemed to be a bit difficult in Lance’s case. The older man seemed to have gotten something against him since day one of Lance’s appearance in the hospital, almost as if he didn’t like Lance’s bright and energetic energy looming around whenever he saw the brunette boy or liked ANYTHING about him really…though Lance couldn’t blame him in some cases since Lance used to be a trouble maker from time to time BUT he always made sure to get good grading and keep his reputation within the hospital good and he honestly grew out of the stage once he officially became a General Surgeon. But even with all that, the man still didn’t like him…

It was important to gain the man’s trust because, well…everyone needed to climb their way up to the top right? And what better way than getting on your boss’s good side? Even though ‘kissing ass’, or so everyone would call it, wasn’t really necessary for Lance since his skills as a Surgeon exceeded a lot of his boss’s other students. So Lance didn’t really feel the need to go through so many lengths to get a good word about himself around, especially when his own success seemed to flutter around the building ‘on its own’.

But there Lance was, still wearing his baby blue button up shirt with his dark blue jeans and blue canvas loafers to match said shirt but after slipping on his green fur-hooded jacket and walking out his apartment to his blue Chevrolet Cruze car, he doesn’t make his way to the bar. Before taking off into the wintery snow filled streets, Lance shoots a text to Hunk to let him know of the situation with a small frown. After a careful 20 minute ride down the snow-filling streets from the light snowing going on, Lance finally makes it to the hospital and begins greeting every familiar face he saw on his way into and through the building. He drops off his coat into the Doctors locker room to grab his white coat with his name stitched neatly underneath the left chest pocket in incursive before heading out to check in and make his rounds around the ER.

And that was the starting point of Lance McClain’s new life as a General Surgeon down at the prestigious Hope Garrison Hospital. The life Lance worked his ass for and is still currently working his ass off to achieve even more greater things for not only himself but his family. He knew everyone he worked with struggled to get where they all were, especially Hunk and Katie but Lance had been through so much even before he decided that the path of a Doctor was for him. Growing up wasn’t the easiest for him, especially when it was all forced and quick…But it was thanks to his rough childhood growing up though that lead Lance to believe he took the right path. As surreal as it all felt, Lance thanked whatever gods that helped him push through to get to where he was because he had seen so many people leave midway during his studying and training days, people giving up without trying. Those people had nearly influenced him to do the same many times before when he felt extremely down, when he felt he wouldn’t be able to make it as well...

But he had good friends to help him through those phases. The same way those people nearly dragged him down, he had Hunk, Pidge and many others who told him otherwise, who encouraged him along with his family and he couldn’t be any more grateful for having them around. He had the most amazing, kindest friends that a guy could ask for and hardly ever get, so he cherished them.

“Well well, look who it is. I never thought I’d see the day Doctor McClain would show up in the ER on a _Saturday_ ,” says Florona, a friend and ex-girlfriend of Lance’s from back in his residency days who worked as a nurse in the same ER as him. She was a really sweet person who was well known for calming children when they came through the ER, her smile always bright and warms the hearts of many coming in for care. It was a pity she had decided to break up with Lance when he had told her he realized he was Bisexual at the time they were dating, yet Lance couldn’t quite blame her since she had caught the guy making out with another male doctor in an unoccupied room before he had told her…but he didn’t have any ill intentions of cheating on her or anything at the time, for at that moment it just simply happened. Luckily for Lance she was cool enough with the situation and to remain as friends after he had apologized to her repeatedly for what he did but it was as mentioned before, Lance used to be a trouble maker.

“I didn’t think I’d see myself walking in here on a Saturday either,” Lance responds with a small smile but the soft huff that follows afterwards as he leans against the marble counter where she sat clearly said otherwise. She looks up to him from her computer screen with a small smile herself, taking notice of said unhappy outtake of breath and says in an attempt to cheer him up, “Well, at least you don’t have a lot of patients to look after for the night. Most of them were checked out earlier once they were cleared, so we only have 4 people for the time being. The patients in cubicle 3 and 5 might just be able to leave tonight if their tests form earlier come in clear.”

“Sounds pretty good but anything can happen, this IS an ER and we still haven’t quite hit the night hours yet so look alive,” he says tapping his hand on the counter and offering her another smile before walking off to the first occupied cubicle. Lance did clock in for the night shift but there was around an hour and a half before they could officially consider it the night shift, so Lance was just a tad bit early to his shift.

For the next following hours though, Lance had been casually going back and forth between the 4 patients, checking their vitals and test results taken earlier to decide whether if they were clear to leave. As Florona had told him, two of the patients were able to leave due to clear test results but the other two needed an overnight stay to make sure everything was ok, seeing how one of them were dealing with some Asthma issues and the other with a pretty bad allergic reaction to some fish they had eaten. After that, Lance didn’t really have much to do but occasionally check up on the two and fill out some paper work here and there, no one else having walked through the doors of the ER. Lance had heard the others speak of how dead Saturday nights were but he honestly didn’t think it would be as dead as a dessert, especially with this being his first time working the shift on this very day. The hospital was a well known place with a high success rate in plenty of surgeries and is always given very good reviews by patients, There was literally nothing to do and this was just as bad as staying home on a Saturday night to stare at nothing but his four walls…he could really use someone to talk to since everyone in the nurses station seemed to be a lot more occupied than Lance in both their conversations and computer work.

And as if someone heard his secret plea of accompaniment, his phone rings from a call.

This time he actually looks to see who was calling him and when he sees the call was from Hunk, he answers with a smile. “Your timing couldn’t be any better Hunk,” he says with relief evident in his voice. “This place is so dead and I’m bored out of my mind. You should definitely come pay me a visit buddy, maybe help bring up the deadness in this place because I’m just about ready to KO on one of these beds…”

 _“Ok, first of all, I know our job is to prevent people dying and such but I don’t think reviving the dead from their slumber is part of the job description. And second, me and Katie had a change of heart about going to the Balmera without you. It doesn’t feel the same since you’re the turn-up guy of the group,”_ Hunk says over the phone, Lance smiling to the compliment but his smile instantly reverses to a small frown when he hears Katie nearly faint voice say right after, _“Or more like the loud one of the group.”_

“Whatever Gremlin, you’re just jealous you can’t party like me. You’re too mainstream and boring,” Lance says with a small grin as he turns over to his other side on the white-sheeted bed he was currently laying in, Lance having laying behind closed curtains in a cubicle within the ER while keeping his distance from the other two patients to keep the peace. Luckily his boss wasn’t there because the moment he saw Lance laying in a bed meant for patients, he would most definitely get the hugest scolding of his life. Lance was also lucky that he was friends with pretty much everyone in the building so he wouldn’t get ratted out, his enemies very little but he always manages to keep them at a distance and pay them no mind. Those ‘enemies’ of his were normally people who were jealous of him and his success, or so Lance saw it that way, but he knew not to pay them mind since they were mainly new residents just coming in.

 _“Coming from the Dolphin who gets wasted after 2 small drinks, which by the way are never strong drinks,”_ Katie throws back at him, Lance able to hear the bite in her voice and he lets out a small growl. He couldn’t quite deny the fact that he couldn’t hold his alcohol very well but he hated when it came out of Katie since she always teases him about it every time it’s brought up.

 _“Guy’s come on, not over the phone,”_ Hunk pleads, Lance letting out a soft ‘Hmpf’ before Hunk says, _“Anyways, we were planning on heading over to the hospital since we honestly don’t have anything to do for the rest of the night, maybe give you a hand with all the patients you must be looking after.”_

Hunk was definitely messing with Lance, he clearly knew about the Saturday curse. Lance knew that he knew and he sits himself up because his friends were really picking on him for having taken the shift in the first place. “Hunk, not you too,” Lance groans as he crosses his legs pretzel style and places his hands on his legs, now holding his phone between his shoulder and ear. With a small chuckle on the other line- well, two actually, Hunk says, _“Sorry man, I just can’t believe you actually took Iverson’s shift of all people. I know he’s our boss and all but everyone knows how much the guy can’t stand you. The fact he even asked you is, well…pretty shocking. And funny if I may add.”_

“No Hunk, you may not “add” to that or anything else. You’re hanging around Katie way too much these past days and she’s rubbing off on you, I’m not liking it one bit,” Lance says with a soft huff, “You’re supposed to be MY best friend, not hers…”

 _“Aww, there’s no need to be jealous buddy, we’re still best friends~”_ Hunk coos, Lance able to imagine the smug look on both of the others faces.

“I’m not jealous, I’m just…I’m just bored!” Lance grumbles as he hunches over a bit.

_“Alright alright, we gotcha buddy. We were just about to buy some take out, you want something?”_

And with the given offer, Lance casts an order of takeout before hanging up on to once again attend to his now sleeping patients. He takes a quick peek to their vitals and such, scribbles it down on their charts before going off to the nurses station to hit up another conversation with Florona and the other nurses for the time being.

It was already hitting 11:25 am, having been way past the night shift with Lance now sitting on a chair by the nurse’s station with a leg folded over the other, holding his fourth warm cup of not-so-great coffee in his left hand while holding his phone in the other. He had been scrolling through his social media for the past hour or so, having nothing else to do in an empty ER. He usually wasn’t very fond of caffeine and he knew the harm the drink can cause on the human body but what could he do? He had to fight the urge of falling asleep during work and surprisingly his system seemed to be taking the dull, tasteless liquid in just fine…to only crash terribly afterwards, he knew that much. Luckily he didn’t have to intake the cup with the horrid lack-of-taste any longer, for Hunk and Katie had finally walked through the doors of the ER with bags filled with “heaven”, or so Lance saw it that way, and with big smiles. Hunk being the generous guy everyone knew he was, he had purchased a couple of small energy drinks to pass out to the people sitting at the nurse’s station.

 After thanking him, the trio take their leave to the closest cafeteria to sit and have their very late dinner together. The three friends usually ate dinner together a little more than occasionally, if not with dates or alone the other percentage of the time. It was something they found themselves doing without realizing it ever since their residency days, whether it be dinner, breakfast or lunch. It had stated off a bit awkward at first, at least when Katie had joined Lance and Hunk one day for breakfast. All the other seats had been taken in the cafeteria, leaving Katie to walk around a bit in hopes of finding an empty table because she wasn’t very sociable with others at first. As she had passed the two males table, Hunk had suggested inviting her over to the table against Lance’s indirect will, claiming that she passed their table for a reason. Hunk had willingly ignored Lance’s words and called her over, Katie obviously looking hesitant before walking back to their table and sitting down. There wasn’t much conversation at first, at least on Katie’s behalf but once she realized that they had some similarities and they turned out to be harmless goofballs, she grew to hang with them more often. Now the three were nearly inseparable and were called “The Big Trio” by many within the hospital.

Lance McClain the General Surgeon, Hunk Garrett the Anesthesiologist and Katie Holt the Neurologist Surgeon. No one dared to interfere with the trio or pick fights with them…except a few people a couple of years back who had a bone to pick with Katie but that issue was solved within a heartbeat by the two males who grew attached to the shorter female. They were like a family of brothers and sisters, in and out of the hospital. They were one of the big reasons why Lance enjoyed what he did, them being his second biggest motivation besides his family being first but he would never change what he had now for anything. He would never change the people who helped put together the life he had now, who gave him both the good and bad memories he currently had. He wouldn’t change them or his life for nothing…

So there they had sat, right at the same table they always did since the very beginning of their own “Beginning”, talking away about anything and everything as usual. Whether it be about how their day was, who they had met, what had happened in the new episodes of their favorite TV shows, Katie teasing Lance as usual and leaving Hunk to break up their quarrels over whatever it was they quarreled over: the list was endless and random every time.

At least until Hunk and Katie realize what time it was and decided it was time to call it quits to head back home for a good night’s rest. As much as Lance pestered for at least one of them to stay and keep him company, Katie refuses with the excuse of not getting paid to stay in the hospital and not wanting to spend the night on her day off on the rather uncomfortable beds in the doctors resting rooms. Hunk also refuses due to not wanting to sleep in the resting rooms and because he needed to make sure his pet, whose names was Akua and was a very pretty Bernese Mountain Dog, was ok. Lance couldn’t blame them since he too hated the beds in the hospital, so without any further bugging he lets them leave but walks with them to the parking, which was right out the doors of the ER’s entrance. Lance had walked out the ER despite the now heavy snow that had still continued to fall since the very morning, only in his thin, white lab coat but since he was going to run back in right after the two took off he didn’t really mind taking in a little cold.

“I’m actually regretting taking this shift now that I’m watching you two leave,” Lance nearly whines as he balls his hands into fists within his pockets, feeling the cold slowly but surely sinking in under his tan skin. The snowflake’s that fell into his chocolate brown hair and melted milliseconds afterwards weren’t helping in making the male colder than he was already feeling and he could feel the slight sensation of the shivers starting to crawl into his skin.

“Well, if you hadn’t taken the shift-“ Katie had started as the two stop at the back of Hunk’s yellow Kia Soul car, “Hunk and I would’ve been hauling you out the bar, with you drunk up the ass right about now of course while you screamed one of Beyoncé’s songs into our ears. Either that or you would’ve went off with some random person and end up in their bed half naked to only find out you guys didn’t get to have sex because you ended up vomiting and knocking out…OR you would’ve-“

“Ok gremlin, I don’t know how you obtained that Intel but I’m going to have to stop you there,” Lance says frowning at the smaller female, his hands coming out of his pocket to fold over his chest now. “The fact you have that information is very unsettling BUT you aren’t an angel when you’re drunk either so don’t you dare get me started!” She mirrors both his pose and expression before saying, “Oh, it can’t be worse than the time you yanked your shirt off in the middle of the bar and started dancing on the counter for everyone.”

“You sure about that? Ms. I had to use the bathroom but ended up outside of the bar while telling people I was lost before falling asleep on the street like a hobo,” Lance says with a small smirk. Her frown grows and she lets out a soft groan but a small smirk of her own grew seconds after when she says, ”How about when you stole a mannequin from that clothes store down the street from the bar and said “she” was your “long lost sister” who you hadn’t seen in years?”

“Oh, that can’t be worse than the time you started crying when a guy walked up to you and asked for your name and number because he was interested in you but you thought he was a cop who wanted to arrest you for stealing that bag of Cheetos earlier that day!”

“He WAS a cop Lance, I was seriously scared shit you prick!”

“Guys, I seriously want to get home. Can we save this for another day please?” Hunk interrupts the two with an apologetic yet tired expression as he raises his hands up between the two. “I gotta drive Katie home and I really don’t want to stick around for when the snow starts to get heavy…”

The brunette and ginger haired friends stick their tongues out at each other before Lance pats them both on the shoulder with a smile, the quarrel forgotten as Lance says, “you’re right buddy, I gotta get back in too anyways. I guess I’ll see you guys tomorrow, drive safe you two.”

The three exchange goodbyes before Hunk and Katie get into the drivers and passengers seat of his car, Lance having already turned to walk back in the ER with his hands back in his pockets. All he could hear was his shoes crunching in the snow and the starting of Hunk’s car in the quite night, the loud engine of his car having triggered Lance into remembering something. He turns right back around into the cold night before he could walk past the doors of the ER while mumbling to himself, “I should grab my reading glasses from the car, I could really use them after all that coffee I drank…”

He walks past Hunk’s car, who still hadn’t taken off yet and walks three parking spots down on the opposite side of the parking lot from Hunks car to reach his own. While digging in his pockets for his keys, he whistles to a random favorite song of his and walks around his car to the driver’s seat. Upon unlocking his car, he opens the door to sit himself on the seat and begins to rummage through his compartments. “Oh man, I hope I didn’t leave them at home,” he mumbles once again to himself. It wasn’t quite necessary for him to wear them 24/7 but Lance couldn’t really read well when it came to stress related situations or when he was really tired, so the glasses would help him plenty if anything were to happen in his current tired state. After a couple of minutes of checking all over the front side of the car, from his compartments to under the seats of the front of the car, he finally finds the case to his glasses and sighs out of relief. He checks the time in his car to see he it was only 1: 12 am and groans a bit, he still had a while before he could go home. He couldn’t quite complain though because he WAS the one who put this upon himself…he was sure to get stuck in this situation quite a lot in the future so he tries to push away the disappointment in himself before closing the open doors to his compartments and making sure everything was alright so he could leave.

Lance takes a quick glance into his rearview mirror to see Hunk finally backing out of the parking spot before stepping out of his own car and closing the door. He holds up the key to lock the car and lets out a soft huff, his breath forming into a small cloud from the cold air and he begins to turn but something stops him in his tracks. He had caught a glimpse of something from the corner of his eye in front of his car and when he turns to see what it was, his blue irises land on a smudge of red paint on the snow covering the ground.

Or so he thought it was paint, for when he slowly approaches the front of his car out of curiosity, something that honestly reminded him of the most recent horror movie he had just watched, he spots something that has him dropping the case of his glasses instantly.

Well, more like ‘someone’.

It was a guy. A guy who was currently unconscious on the floor in front of Lance’s car. A guy who looked severely beat up and seemed to be bleeding out somewhere due to the very small but evident pool of blood that had spread on the white snow he was currently laying in. A guy who had left a trail of smeared blood not only on the floor where Lance had saw it but on the front of his car….as much as he wanted to be upset about that he couldn’t because there was a guy pretty much dying before him.

“Oh my…shit…” he whispers to himself as he hesitantly approaches the unconscious body. When he realizes the male wasn’t planning on attacking him by surprise or planning to even more, he reaches out to check for a pulse under the male’s neck. “Sir, can you hear me?” he asks while trying to focus for a pulse. It was hardly noticeable but he could feel one, which meant this guy wasn’t waking up and he needed to rush this guy in very fast.

He slowly and gently turns him over to check for the cause of the bleeding but upon the amount of blood lose and the layer of clothing that was covering, Lance found it difficult to find the source and needed to cut through the clothes. Seeing how he didn’t have anything sharp to do the job, he grabs at the hem of the shirt and t-shirt underneath to rip at it completely, baring the males chest clear of clothing. “Oh no, this is not good, I need help,” Lance mumbles as he gets up from the floor to rush into the open area of the parking lot. As if luck was on his side, Hunk hadn’t driven out of the parking lot just yet but he was approaching Lance since the exit was right past him. So Lance jogs right in the center of the lot to stop the two from driving nay further, Hunk having stepped on the breaks from both the sudden appearance of Lance popping up out of nowhere and from not wanting to hit him with his car, despite Lance hitting his hands on the front for precaution. Lance could tell he scared the living shit out of the brunette when he sees how wide eyed he was as he watched Lance walk up to his window. Katie, on the other hand, was simply frowning at Lance the whole time, the fact that she nearly went flying out the window with how hard Hunk had hit the brakes having upsetting her more than her having been scared. The two were sure that Lance had did that on purpose, a small little prank of his but before Hunk could finish his sentence of “What the hell Lance, now’s not the time for your dumb pra-“, he notices the blood on Lance’s hand and very small smudges on his coat.

“Woah man, a-are you hurt?? Did I actually hit you?!? O-Oh my god, I’m so sorry, let’s get you in the ER buddy, I didn’t m-mean to-“Hunk had stuttered with wide eyes that began to water, Katie nearly following along with Hunk as the two reached for their seatbelts. They pause though when Lance says,

“No Hunk, I’m pretty sure that if you would’ve hit me I’d be on the floor right now with multiple fractures and a possible-“Lance had started but he lets out a small groan when he realizes he was just about to go off topic. “Look, I need your help. I just found someone unconscious in front of my car, they hardly have a pulse going on and they’re bleeding out pretty quickly. Can you guys lend me a hand?”

The two nod agreeingly before Katie exits the car first to grab a stretcher while Hunk goes to re-park his car, Lance running back to the unconscious male. Hunk is the first to arrive to where Lance had been kneeling on the floor with the unconscious male.

“Oh my god, that’s a lot of blood,” Hunk mumbles as he eyes the slowly spreading blood in the snow.

“Hunk, I’m going to need you to focus body, when Katie gets here I need you to help me lift him up,” Lance says in hopes of bringing the wide-eyed male to focus on the situation and not on the blood. Hunk had always been quite queasy with blood since the beginning, which is why he didn’t go for Surgeon like he initially was supposed to. Despite being really good in his field as an Anesthetics Doctor, he still wasn’t quite fond of the sight of blood, or at least the massive amounts since he was fine drawing blood and doing simple task as so.  

“B-But Lance, that’s seriously a lot of blood, a-are you sure he isn’t dead already? Maybe he’s-“

“Hunk, focus!” Lance growls a little louder with his eyes remaining on the male before him. Seconds after Hunk finally brings himself to calm down, Katie comes back with the stretcher and the two brunettes swiftly and gently haul the male off the floor and onto the bed.

The three rush into the ER with Lance ordering them to grab what they needed while connecting him up to the machines with Florona’s assistance, in hopes to try and keep the male alive. Lance honestly wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to keep the guy alive, he honestly didn’t see much hope for him with the immense amount of blood he had seemed to lose. God who knew how long the guy had been outside like that….But things weren’t looking good at this point. Lance was a nervous wreck as he tried to wrack through his brain for what to do, forcing it to focus because a person’s life was on the line and this was honestly his first time in such a situation. He was terrified of losing this person, yet he didn’t see him making it through…

But he didn’t give. He couldn’t give up because not only was it a part of the required skill for the job, but it was also in Lance’s nature. He couldn’t give up on this person no matter how much of the odds were stacked up against his positivity for the other.

“Shit-We’re losing him!”

Because Lance was a Doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty readers, I hope you enjoyed this chapter~!  
> (even though it's a bit shorter than what I'm used to writing but I was in a rush (~_~)...)
> 
> And now I present to you......
> 
> .....
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> ....
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> ..
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> 
> ThE fIrSt PoLl FoR tHiS sToRy~!  
> ( http://www.strawpoll.me/15393661/r )
> 
> I wasn't sure what poll website to use at first since the majority I saw allowed limited poll creations and i wasn't about to pay just to use a simple poll creating site...so I went as free as I could! XD
> 
> But your first poll is to simply chose who was the person Lance had found out of the broganes brothers. You even have a choice to say its none of the two and that it was simply a random person who popped up in such a condition because anything can happen guys, it's all on you so choose wisely~! ;D
> 
> Do remember though, this is only the beginning of this story so whoever you pick won't decide who will be Lance's "forever love~". That's going to take some time before that's revealed later on! The ending of the poll will be on April 4th and I'll have the next chapter up 2-3 days afterwards. Also, if the link isn't working for anyone by any chance, you can simply just state your vote in the comments below and I'll count them in.
> 
> Sooo yeah, I hope you guys liked this simple chapter and I'll see you guys soon with more and hopefully better content~!!  
> \\(^_^)/
> 
> {Fun Fact}: Hunk's dog's name, Akua, means spirit in Hawaiian. Yes, I know the guy is uncanonly Samoan but I just wanted to go with a Hawaiian pet name since the majority sounded pretty cute~!
> 
> {Definition of Terms}
> 
> *General Surgeon: General surgeons not only perform surgeries for a wide range of common ailments, but are also responsible for patient care before, during, and after surgery.
> 
> *Anesthesiologists: Anesthesiologists provide or participate in more than 90 percent of anesthetics. In the operating room, they are responsible for the medical management and anesthetic care of the patient throughout the duration of the surgery.
> 
> *Neurologist: A neurologist is a medical doctor who specializes in treating diseases of the nervous system. They manage and treat neurological conditions, or problems with the nervous system.


	3. Because Of  Fear

For every step he had took within the nothingness of the darkness he was surrounded in came a soft yet buzzing noise in his ears. It reminded him of the same annoying buzz he continued to hear days after the car accident years ago, he hated it to the point where he had asked god himself to make him deaf instead of torturing him with the bothersome noise. Luckily for him though, he was rid of the annoying buzz after fully recovering from the horrific accident, both physically and mentally but…it was back.

_It was different though: it had started off soft and slow, just like before but this time the noise had a pattern to it. It was an on and off pattern, when it started it would last 6 seconds before going out. After a 6 second break it would return and it continued like this for quite a while, eventually rendering the male still after a couple of steps later as he fell to his knees with a groan, bringing his hands up to his head to grip at his hair in frustration. This noise, it was so much worse than before, especially with the slow yet evident increase of volume and how it was slowly bringing along a headache. It was frustrating, annoying and now growing painful to the male as he begins to lower himself, slowly becoming unable to handle the throbbing sensation in his head, the buzzing in his ears that became more frequent. He was sure to go insane or mad if he didn’t find a way out of…wherever the hell he was._

_While attempting to ignore the sound and sensation wringing through him, he forces himself to look up. There was no way of telling what was up or down, left or right, or horizontal and diagonal because it was pitch black. Not even a speck of light to guide the frustrated male out of the current void he was stuck in, nothing to get him out of the all too familiar solitude he had been surrounded in since the day he was born…_

_But then something brings his attention away from the headache and buzzing. A soft yet audible thud coming just from behind him has him turning his head oh so quickly to find the source, thankful to have even just a second of a distraction from the damn noise filling his ears and head. His wide-eyes begin to roam the nothingness behind him, searching for the source of the sound to see nothing at first…_

_But then he sees it._

_Even though it’s from afar, he is able to recognize the figure that laid still and possibly lifeless against the ground. It was an all too familiar figure that the male would be able to tell who it was no matter the distance or situation, an all too familiar figure that he needed to get to. And with the very little strength he seemed to have in his body, he pushes himself off the grounds and begins to take baby steps. His feet felt as if he had weights tied around his ankles, yet that didn’t stop him from pushing through the heavy feeling, his baby steps turning into a light jog. Before he knew it, he was running, his breath and heartbeat picking up in pace as his eyes never moved from the stilled figure. He opens his mouth to call out to the unconscious male but he doesn’t hear anything. Not his voice or even his feet hitting against the ground but the buzz was still there, still going on and off and his head was now pounding…but that wasn’t stopping him. He needed to reach him, to see if he was ok, to see if he was even alive-_

_But no matter how much he ran, he couldn’t quite see himself reaching the other. The distance was barely closing in and he could feel the mixture of emotions going through him: Frustration, Anger, Desperation, Fear…No matter how many times he called out to him, his voice didn’t seem to be heard, no reaction came from the other and this only increased his desperation to reach him. The buzzing in his ear seemed to get louder and the sound seemed to shift a bit, no longer a buzz but beeping. Yet that was the last thing he could care about because he was right there. His brother was RIGHT THERE, right before his eyes yet he couldn’t get to him, he couldn’t grab him, he couldn’t talk to him and that only frustrated him even more._

_The beeping now sounded as if a monitor of some sort was being held to his ears, his body feeling more tired and sluggish. He could feel himself slowing down but he doesn’t let that stop him to a complete halt from trying to reach his unresponsive brother, his only family._

_His surroundings then began to show streaks of white all around him, the streaks growing bigger a little too quickly for his liking because he was nowhere near reaching the other. In hopes of reaching the other before they were both engulfed in the light, before his body could give up on him he reaches out a hand and calls out to the other one last time before he disappeared right before his eyes once again._

_Before he was no more himself._

_“Shiro!”_

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This wasn’t Lance’s night.

Not only was he exhausted from the night shift he had taken over, especially with the patients that seemed to very surprisingly and randomly flood in right after the first one he encountered but because he had been in the OR for 3 hours straight trying to revive said first patient. He had nearly lost the male a good couple of times, his injuries having been nearly fatal and barely savable but Lance seemed to create some kind of miracle to revive the other every time. He managed to bring the male into a stable condition despite the fractured ribs, broken wrist, twisted ankle, very dark bruises all over his body and a very very painful burn on the side of his lower belly that would most likely turn into a horrifying scar for the guy. With how low the others vitals were and with the amount of blood he seemed to have lost, Lance had no idea how the guy was still able to hang on, especially with the internal bruising he had, normally someone wouldn’t last as long as an hour with heavy injuries…but this guy seemed like a fighter. There was no doubt the unconscious male was a strong person indeed but that wasn’t what had Lance thinking this was the worst night of his life. Any doctor would normally feel proud to have brought a patient from near death, to save a life but for the first time since he had officially began his career…

He was nowhere happy.

When he and Hunk walked into the OR after stabilizing said male, along with the rest of his team, the first thing they had went for was the open wound he had been losing blood from. Or so they thought it was an open wound, for when they were able to clear the blood around the area, they had discovered it was a very bad burn that seemed to pierce right through the skin. It was most likely a 3rd degree burn, barely close to a 4th from how badly but when they were able to clear the area to see what exactly was going on, Lance had instantly frozen up on the spot. Everything and everyone slowly began to quiet in Lance’s ears, Lance having blocked out whatever noise around him from the sudden shock coursing through him. Then there was a mixture of emotions hitting him at once as he stared down at the wound before him: Fear, Sadness, Anger, Disgust...it all started to make his insides churn. He was so close to letting his emotions take over, he was ready to run out the room to find the first garbage can he could to throw up in, in hopes of ridding himself of the strange yet familiar mixture of emotions running through him-

But luckily he was able to catch himself in time. Or more like Hunk was able to snap the brunette back to reality when the rest of the team realized he hadn’t moved, having called the males name loud enough for Lance to flinch and turn his head towards him. His blue irises were wide and his face had gotten pale, everyone was able to clearly see the fear in his eyes. The sight had frightened Hunk greatly, seeing how that was the first time he had ever seen such an expression on his face but he knew not to make a scene in front of the others when they had someone nearly dying in front of them. So he had simply asked if Lance was ok and told him to work fast or else they’d lose the patient. Lance hesitated at first, hesitation a feeling he was told to never feel when in the OR because a life was on the line but eventually he forces his mixed emotions as far back as he could before they began the 3 hour operation.

And now there Lance was, sitting on the rather soft three-cushioned orange couch in the doctor’s lounge with his head laid back against the curve of the furniture. He had been staring up at the white ceiling of the room ever since he had sat himself down, his fingers tiredly yet nervously fiddling with the small cold bottle of water he had bought from a vending machine down the hall. Since the moment he had stepped out of the OR, his mind had been a huge mess, his thoughts becoming uncontrollable as the emotions he had shoved passed him began to flood within him once again. With shaking hands he had told one of his team members to finish up before storming out of the room once everything had been stabilized, having ignored Hunk when he had called out to him. He had to be alone to organize his thoughts, to calm himself down, to convince himself that things weren’t going to turn out like he feared it would.

Why?

Because the biggest wound on the unconscious patient wasn’t your regular ‘I-got-caught-in-a-fire burn’. It wasn’t your ‘I-dropped-a-frying-pan-on-myself’ kind of wound either. The medium sized burn around his lower right side…it formed a symbol. It was a symbol that Lance had instantly recognized and when he did, he could feel his skin going cold all over. Never would he had thought he would ever see that symbol, never again had he wanted to SEE it. Just the thought of even laying eyes on it had Lance shiver for the hundredth time since his dispatch from the OR. The thought of the symbol on the male had begun to flood Lance’s thoughts with memories, memories he had thought he would never have remember for the rest of his life, the memories flashing into his head back to back in the form of a kaleidoscope. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in and out, attempting to rid himself of the harsh thoughts terrorizing his already tired mind form the shift but it didn’t seem to work. No matter how many times he took in a deep breath and let it out, he couldn’t rid himself of the damn thoughts. Because of this, the breaths he had continued to take in and out only began to quicken in pace little by little without his realization, his fingers gripping still around the now sweating water bottle in his hands. At this rate he was sure to catch a panic attack, his now frantic thoughts unable to come to a halt.

_[Why does he have that symbol, why did he end up here in this hospital? Is this a trap, are THEY coming after me? I-It’s been a really long time since then, there shouldn’t be any reason for them to follow after me and they haven’t bothered us since then, what’s going on? I swear I didn’t do anything, I-I can’t let him do anything to us, I have to do something about this, I have to do something about HIM! I can’t-]_

“Hey buddy.”

Having been startled by the sudden voice, Lance jumps in his seat, his heart nearly stopping from the surprise visit as he leans his head off the couch, only to see Hunk standing before him with his hands shoved in his own lab coat with a worried expression on his face. Lance had nearly forgot that he had been sitting there on the couch for at least an hour after having stormed out of the OR. He honestly was a bit surprised it took that long for Hunk to find him but he was also glad he didn’t, he needed some time to process what he had just saw and to calm himself before he could talk to anyone in general.

“Are you feeling alright? You didn’t look too good back in the OR earlier, you went really pale, what happened?” Hunk asked before taking a seat next to Lance. Lance doesn’t say anything at first, his eyes scrolling down to the water bottle in his hands as he tried to think of what to say first. “I, uh…” Lance had started softly, having managed to finally force some kind of words through the small knot in his throat. If Hunk hadn’t shown up, Lance was sure he would’ve broken down in tears from the rush of emotions rushing through him…mainly fear, if he were to be very honest.

“I’m fine. I just…kind of blanked out from the lack of sleep I guess,” he lied. Hunk, being the closets person to Lance in their trio friendship, wasn’t believing a word coming out of him. Lance knew this when he glances up at the frowning male besides him to see his unchanging expression. “I’m serious Hunk, I’m fine-“

“Lance, you should know who you’re talking to,” Hunk warns, now raising a brow at him. “Don’t you dare lie to me, especially since I literally saw you change colors within milliseconds in that room. You should be lucky Katie didn’t go in with us because she would definitely chew your ear off about this” Lance frowns a bit more than what he already had been and lets out a soft sigh before throwing himself back onto the couch with a huff. There was no way he was going to lie his way around Hunk, if he could he wouldn’t hear the end of it from him. He had a point too, seeing how if it were Katie, she definitely wouldn’t let him go until she got something out of him…in a much more aggressive manner that is. But Lance was at least grateful Hunk didn’t tell her because having the BOTH of them was just as worse as having Katie on him alone. Yet the topic in hand wasn’t something for Katie to listen in to since Hunk was the only person who would truly understand Lance’s crazed emotions.

“Alright, Ok, you win-“Lance mumbles in defeat before turning his head to look over at Hunk. “But if I tell you, you have to go grab me one of those amazing banana breads they give out at the cafeterias every Sundays, I’m starving. The lunch lady seems to like you a little more than everyone else in this building so maybe you can snag me two before their gone?”

Hunk nods in agreement with a small smile as he chuckled, “She likes me because I don’t complain about her lasagna unlike everyone else, which is actually not that bad by the way. But I’ll see what I can do for you buddy.”

“Don’t lie to yourself OR your stomach Hunk, you both won’t last that long if you keep eating that sloppy mess,” Lance says with a small grin, almost a bit surprised at himself for even being able to do so with his current fear but he tries to seek even the smallest comfort out of it before he could begin his confession. “Oh come on Lance, you’ve complemented the ladies food before, you know you like it. You’re just mad because she flung lasagna at you after she _clearly_ heard you say the ‘meat wasn’t cooked right’. Of course she’s not going to like you after that,” Hunk says grinning himself. Lances own grin fades with those words, folding his arms right after and pouts, “Well, she DID embarrass me pretty much in front of half the staff and doctors in the building…”

“It was well earned though,” Hunk says with a slight nod of his head. His grin then fades as well before he softly nudges the other with his elbow on his arm before mumbling a soft, “So? What happened?” Lance once again hesitates on whether if he should really bother his friend with things Lance thought were both serious yet most likely nothing but when he turns to look at him, he decides to push through his hesitation.

“Ok, look,” he started off as he sat himself back up to take a quick glance around the room for anyone else around, despite Lance having been alone for the past hour or so already. The information he was just about to tell was something very serious, very troubling and extremely personal, it was something only Hunk knew about and if anyone else were to hear their conversation, things could possibly go bad for Lance and his career…

Pretty bad.

He looked down at the water bottle in his hands once again, his fingers beginning to fiddle around with it as he slowly began to put together what he was going to say in his head. “You remember how I told you about the complications I had in the past when I was living with my mom and my old man?” Hunk nods a small yes along with a soft “mhm”, now watching him intently and focused before Lance continued. “You know, the whole thing with my dad being...” Lance’s next words seemed to get stuck in his throat but he manages to force them out in a low tone, “ _Murdered_ by those people?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Hunk mumbles softly, he too taking a quick glance around to confirm their isolation before saying in a lower tone, “You told me you didn’t like talking about it in public like this, or at all…” Hunk’s eyes then slightly widen before he leans in towards Lance, almost as if there were people in the room with them and he felt the need to whisper his next words despite the room already being quiet as it was. “Unless they found you? Oh god, Lance, are they here?? Are they threatening you and your family?! Because if they are, we need to call the police and-“

“No Hunk,” Lance interrupts him as he whips his head to look the others in the eyes with wide eyes of his own. “No one is here or getting threatened…at least not yet I hope BUT-” he quickly interjects before the other could open his mouth to question his words and says, “Everything is fine…Well, I _think_ its fine but, um…”

“What?? Don’t you dare leave me hanging Lance, this is really serious! If one of those guys come here, if they come after YOU, things can get really bad here-“

“You don’t think I know that already??” Lance groans as he frowns at him. “But that’s not the case! The real problem here is…it’s…”

“What??” Hunk urges for him to talk, anticipated in a very nerve wrecking way until Lance finally speaks almost in a whisper. “It’s that patient. The one we did the 3 hour surgery on, I think…no, I _know_ he’s one of them.”

“What?!” Hunk nearly shouts in shock. Lance nudges him in the side and warns him to lower his voice by shushing him, Hunk nodding apologetically before whispering, “He is?? H-how do you know, did he tell you?? No, wait, he was unconscious the whole time and he still is…”

“The huge burn he has on his lower abdomen, the one that caused him to nearly bleed out…after we cleaned up, it…turned out to be in the shape of _their_ symbol,” Lance whispers as he locks eyes with Hunks brown ones. “Only their people carry the symbol on their body, whether it be tattooed or burned onto their skin…but it looks like this guy didn’t seem to make it through their “ceremonial” stage or whatever the hell it is they do for people to show their allegiance to those damn murders. We found him really messed up after all…”

“Oh man…” Hunk mumbles as he leans himself back into the couch and runs his hand through his shirt hair. They were both still trying to process the given information, even though Lance had plenty of time to do so before but he was shocked and afraid nonetheless. They both sit in silence for a couple of seconds, Lance becoming a little restless with Hunk’s silence and was just about to speak to clear the tensing atmosphere in the room but Hunk beats him to it. “Well, maybe he ISN’T one of them…cause think about it-“Hunk starts as he sits himself back up, sitting hunched over a bit to lean his elbows on his knees and level himself with Lance. “They wouldn’t send one of their guys to a public and very well-known hospital like this with such an injury. With the kind of crimes and stuff they’re known for, incidents like this is good hard evidence for the police to track them down. Maybe this guy will talk to the police and reveal them out, with how messed up they left him and all…”

Hunk fidgets a bit as he prepares to say his next words. Words he wasn’t sure how Lance would take since his sight of the well-known Mafia group named as The Blade Of Marmora wasn’t the best at all but he still took his chance and says with a slight hint of hesitation in his voice, “Maybe he’s a victim…? There are a lot of people who unfortunately get mixed up with them, like you and you family and they don’t-“

“No,” Lance interrupts him, his head shaking and his fingers coming to a stop around the water bottle. He indeed wasn’t fond of Hunk’s words and he wasn’t afraid to show it, the two always having been honest and open with each other, even in their arguments. “That guy is NOT a victim-“

“How can you be so sure? You’re only judging the guy based off a symbol embodied on him and a very bad wound if I may add. We don’t know if it was forced on him or not-”

“I don’t care if it _was_ forced on him or not,” Lance says over him as he gets up from the couch, having shoved the small bottle of water and his hands in his coat before beginning to pace to and fro from the couch and the little table across from them. “What counts is that he arrived here in this hospital, out of ALL the hospitals in this city, where I just so happen to work at. What if they’re trying to throw a sign at me by sending this beat up guy here, huh? What-“ Lance takes a breath in when he realizes he hadn’t taken a breather from talking and continues with a softer voice, “What if my dad did something back then and they’re coming after me to take revenge? What if they kidnap my mom or one of my siblings for a ransom and something bad happens?” With wide eyes and fear within them now, Lance turns to Hunk while digging for his phone in his pocket with slightly shaking hands, his own voice holding a hint of a tremble as he spoke, “Shit Hunk, I-I have to call them and see if they’re ok, I h-have to warn them just in case they need to leave-“

“Woah there buddy, hold on a sec,” Hunk says while getting up and reaching for the others hand to step him from pulling out his phone. He could feel how nervous Lance had gotten from how cold his hand had become, seeing how no matter how cold the hospital got Lance never seemed to ever get cold. So it was definitely Lance’s nerves. “Let’s not jump to conclusions just yet. You don’t want to scare your mom over something that’s most likely nothing, she doesn’t need that kind of stress with how sensitive the topic at hand is. Nor do you want to scare your siblings, who are currently in school and focusing on reaching their own dreams, just like you did.”

“Hunk, I-“

“I know you’re scared for them Lance and I understand how serious things could get IF what you’re predicating is true, I would be extremely terrified if I were you too cause, you know…it’s the Mafia and the most dangerous one out there too. They’re dangerous and cold hearted, Ruthless people who-“

“You’re not helping buddy,” Lance deadpans as he folds his arms over his chest.

“Right…Anyways, my point is that you should wait. As nerve-wrecking as that sounds, you should wait and see what this John Doe has to say when he wakes up about that burn. If you feel that it’s some kind of sign or trap and he’s really a bad guy, then we can take action by calling the cops on him and getting him out of here, but I honestly don’t think scaring your family is the best way to go. Maybe the guy just so coincidentally ended up here, like I said, and he’ll might actually want help.”

“Well, if he wants help, he can turn to the cops too. I don’t want anything to do with him or those damn criminals, for my family’s sake,” Lance says averting his eyes away from Hunk to gaze over the crystal clear glass table.

This was indeed frightening for Lance and he was sure he wasn’t going to be able to rest after all this, especially since his shift was up and he had to clock out soon. How could he possibly think about going home and resting when there was a possible threat to both him, his career and his family in his very work place? What if he went home to come back to work the next day and get kidnapped himself, or even killed?

What if…he bumped into _HIM_?

No, this was a living nightmare. A nightmare Lance honestly didn’t want to stick around for, yet there wasn’t much he could do until his John Doe of a patient woke up. Oh what a torture, with the others heavy injuries, no one knew how long it would be until he did wake up. He wasn’t in a coma but nor was he in any condition to be waking up. Lance had no choice…but to wait.

“Alright buddy, whatever you decide I’m ok with it. For the mean time, you should grab something to eat while I get those breads for you and clock out so you can go home and rest. You’re shift is up and you could really use the rest of the day off,” Hunk says patting the tan skinned male on the shoulder before making his way to the entrance of the lounge. Lance follows after him and walks out the empty room, the both of them making their way down the quiet halls. “Do you really thing I’m going to be able to go back home after this? I think I’m better off staying here and keeping a close eye on that guy, just to make sure he doesn’t try anything funny,” Lance says with a raised brow. As they continued to walk and take turns through the halls, they became less quiet with either doctors, staff, students or patients passing by. That didn’t stop them from softly talking to each other as they passed by everyone though.

“Uh, I don’t think so. First of all, if Iverson catches you still here after shift hours he’s going to literally blow your ear drums out…possibly mine and Katie’s too since it’s always been like that with us from the beginning. Second, you were stuck in a 3 hour surgery and swarmed with patient’s right after, which you do owe me for since I clocked in to help you AND I’m stuck here now until later in the afternoon…so to sum it all up to a lastly, you need to take your butt home and rest before you pass out in the middle of the ER,” Hunk had lectured and finally came to a halt with his words right when the two arrived to the entrance of the locker rooms. Lance began to debate why he had even became friends with the slightly taller male when he sounded just like his mother every time he lectured him…but yet again it was _because_ of his lecturing’s that Lance kept the guy around, with how caring and kind hearted Hunk was. Lance would never change his friends for nothing, especially Hunk.

“Alright, alright,” Lance says with a sigh as he turns to face him with a small smile, “You win…but only if you promise-“

“To keep a close eye on your John Doe and let you know when he wakes up?” Hunk finishes Lance’s sentence with a grin. Lance blinks at the other for a couple of seconds before raising his hands up in defeat with a soft laugh. “You got me, I’m out of here. I’ll go change and wait in the parking lot for those breads. Work your magic buddy,” Lance says while patting him on the side of his arm. Hunk gives him a small nod before turning to continue walking down the hall.

Lance pushes open the door and leaves it to close on its own as he walks to his locker to unlock his combination lock. Once achieved, he opens the long blue-green metal door to reveal his belongings and begins to pull off his lab coat. After hanging it up inside the wall of the locker, he begins to tug at his teal scrub shirt but stops before he could fully have it over his chest, a sudden and very unsettling memory popping into his head. Those very thoughts had his hands clenching tightly around the piece of clothing, his eyes widening and the hairs at the back of his neck stand quicker than when him and his siblings ran to the kitchen for dinner after their mother announced they were having chicken stew when they were all little. And that was extremely fast, especially with the way they would shove each other into the walls just to get the most chicken form the stew.

Lance closes his eyes in hopes of riding himself of the awful memory but instead, it only encouraged more, his eyes instantly flinging open before anything else could run through his head. He pulls off his shirt and tosses it into the locker before sitting down on the bench right behind him, bringing his head down into his hands to intertwine his fingers into his brown locks. The fear he had managed to subside from talking with Hunk had slowly began to crawl its way back into Lance from head to toe, the shivers crawling up his back not only from the cold that hit him from being shirtless but from the mixed emotions coming back to gnaw at him. Even though he did feel some relief in talking with Hunk about the situation, he still couldn’t help but feel anxious about his predictions possibly being true, the urge to warn his family about this slowly taking over him. He had to do everything in his power to not take any action with the negativity currently scrolling within him, with the fear attempting to take control of him.

But luckily he manages to push those thoughts aside once again but with positive ones, with thoughts of how far he had gotten with his own life and his family’s life regaining after so many bad experiences, along with his father’s death... He had been through way too much to have himself fall back into the same depression he had fell into when everything had went haywire all those years back. He wasn’t about to let all of that resurface and ruin him and his family…not again.

So with that, Lance finally stands himself back up to finish changing into the clothes he had walked in with and grabs his black backpack before walking back out into the halls. On his way into the ER to make his way out, he says his goodbyes to his colleagues here and there, having also bumped into Katie but she had been busy with a patient so he didn’t get to say much to her, their conversation having been as they walked past each other:

“You look dead Dolphin.”

“Whatever Gremlin…”

“Pizza at Hunks later?”

“I’ll see you there.”

Before Lance could walk out the ER, he stops in front of the very exit. He begins to debate whether if he should check up on _‘that’_ patient before leaving. He could just make sure everything was ok, make sure the guy was stable himself so he wouldn’t have to be so damn worried about the guy possibly dying on him while he went home to rest. Maybe confirm no one else showed up in his room to possibly “finish the job” or something…A quick check wouldn’t hurt him…he hoped…but before he could even take a single step to change his destination, Hunk magically calls out to him from behind with the two banana breads Lance desperately craved at the moment. Hunk places both of the plastic-covered breads into Lance’s hands and says with a small smile, “Luckily for the both of us she was in a really good mood today, she gave me four of these bad boys without me having to ask her for the extra two!”

“Oh man, thanks buddy. I seriously owe you one-“

“Again,” Hunk finishes as he folds his arms and looks at Lance with a raised brow, smile still in place. Lance smiles himself as he softly pats the other with his bread-filled hand, as in not to mush his perfection of a breakfast before mumbling, “Yes Hunk, again…Pizza is on me tonight. Sound good?” Hunk nods agreeingly before waving the other off and calling out for him to be careful on the slippery roads. Lance simply waves a hand up without looking back as he walked out into the cloudy and very cold weather.

He unlocks and starts his car from afar before shoving his warm hands inside of his coat pockets in hopes of keeping them that way. He honestly hadn’t expected the weather to be this cold, yet all wintery mornings were cold, there wasn’t anything he could really do about it. He was at least glad it wasn’t snowing anymore…But he finally makes it to his car and quickly opens the door. Before he could put his first foot inside though, his eyes gazes back at the front of his car, the very small trail of smudged blood still somewhat visible within the snow. He closes the car door halfway so he could walk around it and up to the trail, his steps a bit hesitant but stops when he reaches the front of his car. He had forgotten about the small trail that was left on the front of his car and he huffs out a soft yet angry, “Son of a…ugh…”

With a groan, Lance ventures off to a spot on the ground where it was clear of blood in the snow to scoop some up in his glove-free hands and little by little began to toss the snow on the front of his car. He couldn’t drive out of the lot with his car looking like this, the cops would most definitely stop him out of suspicion and lance was not about to take blame for something he obviously didn’t do…yet no matter how much snow he tossed onto it, with his hands now utterly frozen from shoveling snow with his bare hands, hardly anything came off. Thanks to the help of the cold weather, the blood seemed to do a really good job drying up and hardening. Lance cursed under his breath in frustration before going back to his open car door and sitting inside in hopes of finding a bottle of water somewhere. Usually he had at least 2 to 3 laying around somewhere but then he remembered he cleaned out his car not too long ago, therefore he had no choice but to walk himself back into the hospital to get a bottle of water from the closest vending machine if he wanted to clean his car…

And so he did.

After a good 15 minutes pass of Lance’s small journey through the ER’s entrance and back, he had finally gained a water bottle from the closest vending machine (pass the ER and down the longest hall ever) and was able to fully wash off the blood along with a cloth he was able to nag on the way out. Having disposed of everything afterwards, he finally sits himself back into his car and turns up the heat as much as he could before having driven off.

As much as Lance wanted to feel relieved that he would be reunited with his bed and loving Russian Blue cat, Blue, he couldn’t help but feel…nervous. Something wasn’t feeling right, it was as if Lance was getting a bad feeling about the future, about HIS future. As much as he tried distracting himself from everything by playing his favorite radio station and thinking positive thoughts, he couldn’t quite find the strength to focus. Even though Hunk told him not to talk to his mother about the situation, Lance still needed to talk with her regardless, in hopes that maybe hearing his mother’s upbeat voice could calm his nerves…but he wouldn’t tell her anything…

At least not yet.

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“Hey baby, I haven’t heard from you in a while,” the soft voice says happily through the other end of the phone, which was tucked between Lance’s shoulder and ear as he sat on his light blue couch to untie his shoes. “Did you forget you had a mother or what?”

Lance chuckles softly as he tosses the first shoe across from him a couple of centimeters away before mumbling tiredly,” Of course not mom, you know if I don’t call it’s because I’m busy.” As he brings his foot up to untie his other shoe he continues with a smile only his cat could see and says, “And besides, how could I forget about the most beautiful lady that has ever walked this earth?” A familiar yet nostalgic laugh erupts from the older woman, causing Lance to let out yet another chuckle himself to the happy sound coming from his mother. Oh how he missed her big warm hugs, the rose-like scent that came from hugging her, her smiles and laughs that would cause her almond shaped eyes to close. Hell, he missed her delicious food, even though Lance knew how to cook pretty damn well for himself thanks to both her and Hunk’s guidance but he didn’t really cook for himself often, he didn’t have the time. He missed his family in general and as he laid himself down on the couch with one of the couch’s pillows under his head and the phone now in his hand, he had to hold back the sensation to shed a tear.

Thanks to his decision of becoming a doctor, he had to move into the city and the trip was very far. Two states away from his family, just to study and work at the best hospital ever known to mankind…but he didn’t regret it. He couldn’t when the job benefitted both him and his family in ways that Lance knew he couldn’t complain about anything. He loved what he did too so there really wasn’t any reason to complain…well, except for the distance put between him and his family but he had to put up with it. For both of their sakes.

“Oh Lance, don’t be so silly! Surely you’ve found someone else who you can throw those sweet compliments to by now,” she says lively enough to the point that Lance could clearly picture her soft motherly smile in his head. Lance lets out a soft hum as if he were in thought before saying, “At the moment I haven’t…I honestly can’t find the time for dating anyways BUT no matter who I end up with, you will always be the most beautiful lady in my life.” Once again she lets out a soft yet hearty laugh, Lance laying there and listening to her, missing her more and more for every laugh he hears from her and the smiles he can picture in his head every time she does. After she finally comes to she finally says,

“That’s ok sweaty, you keep doing what you have to do. Love will eventually make its way to you and remember what I always tell you: Love is like a lost object. If you search too hard for it, you won’t find it but if you forget about it momentarily-“

“It’ll show up in the most unexpected way, I know mom. You’ve told me this so many times it’s not even funny anymore, literally…” Lance says with a small frown.

“Well, maybe if you weren’t such a lady’s man back in your high school days, I wouldn’t have had to remind you not to chase after all the ladies,” she says most likely with an expression Lance can picture in his head, Lance letting out a scoff himself from her accusation.

“Hey, it’s not my fault I’m so good looking…”

“Of course it’s not baby,” she chuckles softly. Lance then goes quiet, unsure of what to say at this point because all he had needed was to hear his mother’s voice, to hear her soothing yet warm voice to calm his uncontrollable nerves but he had gotten so much more than that. He had gotten what he needed and so much more, so there was no need for him to say anything else…yet he couldn’t find himself to end the call, listening to his mother continue to speak as she asks, “Is everything ok Lance?”

The small smile Lance had been wearing began to fade a little too quickly, that having been the complete opposite of what he needed at that moment. He didn’t need to be asked if he was ok, he didn’t WANT to be asked if he was ok, especially from his mother. Lance was obviously not ok and he had hoped she wouldn’t had asked him so because all he needed was her comforting words, her comforting voice. Not the concern that portrayed in her now worried voice when he didn’t respond to her and she says, “Lance?”

“Yeah…everything’s alright,” he lied.

“It doesn’t sound like it…” It goes quiet for a couple of seconds again, Lance unsure of what to tell her, if he _should_ tell her about the morning incident. Before he could think of what to say, she beats him to it as she says softly with concern evident in her voice, “What’s bothering you honey? You can talk to me you know.” Lance opens his mouth to finally respond but nothing comes out, hesitation pooling over him along with a hint of the crazed emotions from earlier. He couldn’t find the necessary words to calm his mother at that moment and he could feel a slight panic rushing up from his very feet, slowly making its way up but he knew he couldn’t stay quiet for too long. He didn’t want to worry her more than what she already sounded so he finally finds his voice to reassure her with a soft, “I’m fine, really. I just…I really miss you guys, that’s all…”

“Oh baby,” she says with that soft motherly tone of hers, “We miss you too. We’re always thinking about you, wondering when you’ll come visit us…it must be hard for you, living all by yourself…”

At this point of Lance’s life, he didn’t think he’d ever get emotional over the fact he hadn’t seen his mother in years. He didn’t think the fact that he would be so far away from his family after choosing his career path as a doctor, especially his _mother_ out of all of them, would have his eyes water so many years later. He could remember the day he had left as if it had happened just the day before, Lance’s arms clinging tightly around his mother’s shoulders as he hugged her, the rest of the family having thrown themselves on the two as well as they all cried in each other’s arms…oh if he could’ve, he would’ve bought a ticket the moment he had gotten home and he would fly his ass over there so fast. So many years without seeing the very people he loved was truly heartbreaking and lonesome, despite the times they talk through video chats but it wasn’t the same. He couldn’t hug them, he couldn’t get his cheeks squeezed by his mother, his arm pulled by his younger brother, his ear yanked on by his older sister…it just wasn’t the same and as painful as that all sounded, he missed it…

“Nah,” Lance says bringing his free hand up to his face to wipe away the wetness within his eyes before continuing, “It’s not as hard as I honestly thought it would be. I may be living by myself at the moment but I have Hunk and Katie who come to bother me from time to time…Oh, but in the ER today, I had to perform a surgery on this girl who had a metal pipe sticking out from her side, it was pretty hectic!”

“Was she pretty?” she asks, Lance pulling the phone away from his ear to look at the phone with a raised brow, almost as if he were looking at his mother before placing it back with a smiles and chuckles in disbelief, “Seriously mom?”

“What? She could’ve been my daughter-in-law!”

And from then, the two talked a bit more about Lance’s weird patients and his mother’s busy day at the corporate building she currently worked in for a while before Lance finally having to bring their conversation to an end. If he continued to talk with her while lying on the couch, he’d surely fall asleep on her, Lance having gotten home after a very long and tiring shift after all. The two shared how much they missed and loved each other one last time before Lance finally pulls the phone away from his ear to hang up the call this time. He didn’t know how he had managed to push himself off the couch afterwards with how tired his body was but he managed to do it with a low grunt, knowing his muscles were going to sore up by the next day and he couldn’t do anything about it.

So with that, Lance goes to take a quick warm shower to loosen his tensing muscles, dresses up into a pair of black shorts and a white t-shirt for the time being to crash onto the comfort of his bed. With the front of his face placed against the pillow, he reaches his hand out to the side to grab his phone and turns his face to the side to look at the only source of light currently lighting up his barely lit room, his dark curtains having been shoved closed for the sake of the outside light not disturbing his sleep despite their being no sunlight. It WAS still really early, 10:28 am to be exact. He puts an alarm to wake up at least a half hour before Hunk and Katie leave their shifts at night before putting his phone down next to him on the bed, turning in the opposite direction from the phone and closing his eyes. He was pretty exhausted so he would surely fall asleep without a problem, especially after having talked with his mother to clear his thoughts but those menacing thoughts from earlier were still there regardless. It was distant but still there, lurking at the edge as it waited for Lance to pull it forward and out of the dark but luckily for Lance, he managed to fall asleep before it could take over.

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“I can’t believe this,” Hunk says with a frown, his arms crossed as he, Katie and Lance sit on the orange couch in Hunk’s living room. The trio were all sitting in the direction of the coffee table right in front of them as they stared at the two white open boxes of pizza, Hunk and Katie looking displeased while Lance looked apologetic.

“You had one job Lance, ONE job…and an easy one too,” Katie says finally taking her eyes away from the pizzas before her to look up at the brunette. Lance brings his hand up to the back of his neck to rub at it as he says, “It’s not as bad as it looks guys, we can easily fix this-“

“By peeling off each and every piece of Pineapple? I’m way too hungry for that, the flavor is still going to be there regardless…” Katie nearly whines as she flails her arms while sitting herself back into the couch.

“She’s right man. And besides, you told them to add extra pieces of pineapples, they’re both practically packed with it,” Hunk agrees with a sigh. Lance lets out a soft sigh himself as he continues to look over the two pies of pizza before them, trying to find a solution to the situation. He couldn’t figure out what had went wrong, he had been very sure that when he called for the pizza delivery he ordered everything correctly…or at least he thought he did.

He hadn’t heard his alarm go off when he had taken his nap, Lance having fallen into a pretty deep sleep but he _did_ wake up when Hunk had called him, his ringtone volume having been a bit louder than his alarm. He had woke up a half an hour later than his alarm, which was the exact hour Hunk and Katie got out, so he had rushed to get dress and such to make his way over to Hunk’s. While in the process of heading out and into his car, he had called for the pizza to be delivered to Hunk’s place but he couldn’t deny that he didn’t pay attention to what the pizza guy was telling him…

So maybe he _was_ at fault but it obviously wasn’t on purpose. He obviously knew his friends didn’t like pineapple on pizza, they couldn’t stand it or stand the fact that Lance could even eat it but regardless of that, what was done…was done.

“I said I was sorry, alright? If you want I’ll order another pie for you guys,” Lance says digging in his pocket for his cellphone.

“Well, as much as I want to say forget it, I honestly can’t scarf down that abomination of a thing you call _“food”_ so…yeah,” Katie says with the shrug of her shoulders. “I can call if you want, just in case you aren’t pranking us or anything with this…thing-“she says pointing at the pizzas on the table. Lance scoffs and stops midway from dialing the number to look up at the now grinning female who was currently sinking into the softness of the couch. He would’ve thrown one of the pillows from the two seat couch he had been sitting on next to the three seat her and Hunk were on but he didn’t want to soil any of Hunk’s pillows with grease if it landed on the pizzas. So instead he holds back the urge to toss a pillow at her and says, “Screw you Gremlin, you’re just a chicken shit who doesn’t like to keep up with the real world. You BOTH are missing out on some really good stuff here…”

“Yeah, coming from the one who judges me every time I eat my PB and J with Doritos,” she snorts as she pushes her glasses a bit up on her nose. Lance’s eyes narrowed at the shorter female, disgust clearly displayed on his face as he says while nodding his head, “Who the hell does that?! That’s disgusting!”

“No, Pineapple on PIZZA is disgusting,” she says sitting up to better glare at the brunette.

“Dorito’s do NOT go with Peanut Butter OR Jelly, it doesn’t belong in ANY kind of sandwich,” Lance says sitting forward on the couch to level himself with Katie, mimicking her expression.

“Any kind of FRUIT doesn’t belong on pizza either, that’s going against the laws of pizza!”

“And so is adding chips into a SANDWICH! What are you, pregnant or something??”

“I’m actually ok with both guys,” Hunk attempts in getting in the conversation to quiet the two but the two continue to banter over which of their weird food choices were better, Hunk simply watching the two go back and forth with a raised brow because it was something he was already used to.

“If I’m pregnant, then you must literally have a lose screw rolling around that small head of yours because your choice in pizza toppings are insane-“

“Oh I’m pretty sure that if you were to offer a random person on the street a slice of this pizza and half of that mess you eat, they wouldn’t think twice about what to pick-“

“I highly doubt that, I know a lot of people who-“

“Guy’s, that’s enough!” Hunk intercepts and finally gets the two to quiet down, both of them looking at the slightly frowning male. “I’m hungry to the point that I’d eat both this pizza and Katie’s sandwich. And if you both don’t stop, I’ll eat you guys too.”

“Woah man, that’s kind of creepy,” Lance mumbles as he watches the other pull a warm slice from the box and take a bite from it. “No shit Hunk, that’s just weird,” Katie mumbles right after, pulling herself off of the couch with a huff. Lance follows after Hunk in pulling out a slice from the box and takes a bite before watching Katie walk to the kitchen with a frown. “I’ll just make me a sandwich because Lance is untrustworthy when it comes to ordering food…”

“I _was_ going to apologize but the problem here is that you’re just too damn picky…” Lance says with a half mouth full of pizza. Katie simply flips him off before going into the kitchen, leaving the two males to sit in the living room to eat the pizza. Lance takes advantage of Katie’s absence though to sit in her spot next to Hunk, looking towards the kitchen to make sure she wasn’t coming before swallowing the pizza he had in his mouth and asks in a whisper for just the both of them to hear, “Hey, before you checked out of the hospital, did you check up on that guy?”

“That guy?” Hunk mumbles confused at first as he chews on the pizza in his mouth. It then hits him after he swallows and he says, “Oh, you mean Mr. John Doe?” Lance nods a bit too eagerly as he watched Hunk take another bite of his pizza before he nods his head yes. “Yeah, I did. He was pretty stable but it looked like his pressure was having a hard time going back up since after you left. I managed to keep it in a decent level but with those injuries, it’s hard to tell if he’ll make it through the night...”

Lance puts the crust of his already eaten pizza on the clear side of the pizza box before slapping his hands clean together and leaning his elbows on his thighs. He wasn’t sure how to feel about the news, whether if the mysterious guy making it through the night was a good thing or bad. As much as Lance wasn’t supposed to wish death upon any of the patients he received and he didn’t like to wish upon it on anyone regardless, somewhere deep inside of him felt just a tad bit relieved of the thought. The fact that the unknown male carried such a symbol, which he would surely be wearing for the rest of his life, made Lance feel very anxious and uncomfortable. He didn’t like the fact that the very symbol he despised, the very symbol he feared had followed him to where he was, especially after so many years. Every time he thought about it, it made the hairs all over his skin stand and in a very unnerving manner. He didn’t want to even _think_ about having to go through such experiences again, he especially didn’t want his family to go through it again and the thought of it had his stomach slightly churn.

He had to fight back the urge to throw up what he had just ate from the thought, from the memories: so horrid, so dark, so depressing yet terrifying. He never wanted to go through what he and his family went through, not again-

“Lance!” Hunk’s voice finally reaches Lance and brings him out of his thoughts, Lance looking up at him with slightly widened eyes. Hunk looked genuinely worried at him, Lance a bit confused to why until Hunk says, “You alright buddy? What’s with that expression, you look like you’ve just seen a ghost…” Lance clears his throat while trying to rid himself of those menacing thoughts, putting up a smile in hopes to rid himself of the terrified expression he most likely was wearing before attempting to reassure his best friend.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. I just…I keep remembering some unpleasant memories from back then is all but it’s nothing, I promise,” he says patting Hunk on the leg before reaching or another slice of pizza. Hunk was just about to go against his reassurance, knowing the males smile wasn’t genuine but Katie just so happened to walk in right then, causing Hunk to say nothing and grab another slice himself. Lance looks up at her and watches her sit where he had been sitting before he moved with the plate in her hands, his nose scrunching up when he sees her “favorite sandwich” on the plate.

“Oh god Katie, that looks so gross, go take it back to the kitchen-“

“I swear to my loving dog rover that if you say one more thing about my sandwich, I will go over there and shove it down your damn throat,” Katie threatens as she glares at Lance. “You don’t have the right to shame my food when you couldn’t even order the right damn pizza-“

“If you dare bring that abomination towards me, I will pick every one of these pieces of pineapples and flick ‘em at you-“

And once again Hunk stays quiet as a bystander, watching the two bicker as he continued to force down the not so great pizza. After their bickering seemed to calm down, the three of them began to talk about their day and other irrelevant topics from work. This was the usual for them whenever they found the time to get together, conversing and relaxing while discussing anything and everything. This was Lance’s life and he would do anything to keep it.

It felt very strange though when a voice all the way in the pits of his negative thoughts began to whisper to him, warning him to enjoy everything he had now and to make no regretful decisions. Lance ignored it though as he laughed at a weird joke thrown out by Hunk because he knew it was just his nerves acting up. He knew it was the paranoia trying to gnaw its way out to consume him with fear but he knew better than to let it out. He blamed it all on the recent events and his very tired state so there was no way he’d fall into paranoias trap.

But little did he know that the paranoia he was doing everything in his power to ignore...was truly warning him from what was coming for him in the future.  


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The very next day, Lance was once again hard at work in the ER, attending patients coming in and out as usual in both good and bad shape. Even though he was very hard at work though, his mind was completely elsewhere, Lance pretty much in a daze at times. He had doze off so many times to the point where Florona had to pinch his cheek as he leaned against the nurse’s counter. He finally comes to with a soft “Ow-“before bringing his hand up to cup his slightly stinging cheek, frowning at the female.

“Hey, what was that for??” he whines as he watches her sit down in her seat right where Lance was standing. She frowns up at him with her arms crossed and says, “You’re daydreaming…again. What’s up with you, this isn’t like you…?”

What was up with Lance? Two words:

John Doe.

He was just about ready to head into the Doctors resting area, just so he could throw himself headfirst into the first bed his eyes lay on and it wasn’t because he was tired. Well, at least it wasn’t the majority reason why he needed to bury his face into a pillow and possibly scream. He was just too nervous about everything, too paranoid about someone from his past showing up to cause a chaos for him. He feared someone would just magically pop up and…

He honestly hated himself at the moment, just because he couldn’t keep his thoughts together. He hated it and he hated that there was nothing he could do about it but be alert…a little _too_ alert for his own liking.

“It’s nothing, I’m fine…make sure to put those tests in for Mr. Helm in cube 5, we need them done fast and we need those results ASAP,” Lance says as he softly pats his hand on the counter and gives her a small smile in hopes of brushing off her question of his wellbeing. She could be quite the persistent one when it came making sure someone was alright, which was something Lance really liked about her (and still did in a friendly way) but now wasn’t the perfect time for her to be asking him that. He seemed to have been avoiding those kind of questions, for his very own wellbeing and so he wouldn’t panic. _“Luckily”_ for him though, she stops him right when he had taken a couple of steps away from the counter.

“Wait right there mister.”

_‘Shit…’_ he mumbles in his head while closing his eyes for a couple of second before turning around to look at the female with a small smile. “Yes nurse?” he asks a bit innocently. She eyes him with narrowed eyes, Lance seeing the growing suspicion in them but his smile doesn’t falter one bit as he waits for her to speak. She lets out a soft sigh before looking down at her desk while finally speaking.

“The patient with the 3rd degree burn in the ICU, someone found this in the pocket of his pants.”

Lance’s eyes widen for a split second when he sees her hold up a black cell phone but he tries to play it cool as he softly clears his throat and walks back up to the desk. He leans against the counter to get a better look of the device and asks, “Is it on?”

“No, but I can try powering it on and see if there’s a family contact we could call to-“

“No!” he says a little too quickly and unexpectedly louder than he should’ve had, causing the female to slightly jump from the sudden response. Lance clears his throat once again because his nerves were _really_ getting to him but he says in a calmer tone, “No, um…let me do it.” He takes the phone from her hand and glances down at it while saying, “I’ll look into it and, uh...I’ll take it to the patient. See if he’s awake and all so he could call himself, you know…”

He shoves the phone on his lab coat and offers the female a small smile while backing up from the counter, hands beginning to sweat in his pockets with how nervous he was really getting at this point, with all the thoughts going through his head at the moment. “I’ll be right back Flo-“

“L-Lance, hold on-“

Before she could get anything else across, Lance had already walked through the doors of the ER and into the hospital halls, Lance not able to see the confused expression she had on her face. How could he when he held a very important piece of the mystery, a clue to the mysterious being with the treacherous symbol scaring his body? As much as he wanted to think of it as an _“important piece”_ though, he couldn’t help but also think that he was holding a potential threat to not only himself but everyone else in the hospital. He knew the dangers and risk that came with the symbol the unconscious male carried, the phone Lance carried on him could be either a weapon, a threat or even both!

So with sweaty hands, he makes his way over to the doctors bedding area in hopes that it was empty. Luckily for him it was and once he had gotten inside, he locks the door and checks the room in case anyone else was in there without his knowledge. Once he knew he was alone, he pulls out the cellular device and gives it a one over, looking for something, for anything to show him if the device in his hands was indeed as dangerous as he thought it possibly was. After a couple of seconds of checking, he doesn’t see anything….

Except a name etched on the back and bottom corner of the phone. Lance digs in his pocket to pull out his reading glasses before bringing the phone up to get a better look of the name. He puts the scratchy yet sloppy lettering together to mumble out softly to himself,

“Keith…?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there guys~!
> 
> I know I should've updated this chapter a while back but when life wants to be an ass, it'll prevent you from doing what you really want...(TT^TT)
> 
> But nonetheless, the chapter is here!
> 
> From the poll results I rallied up, Keith had won (if you hadn't noticed...lolz) so this is what you guys get (for now). It came out a little longer than I had expected it to be but the more the merrier, am I right? ;D
> 
> I do hope you guys liked the chapter though and I'll see you guys in the next one~! :3
> 
> {P.S. Do you guys like pineapple on pizza like Lance? Or Doritos in a PB & J sandwich like Katie? Cause I have no idea what either taste like...lolz! I might try them both to see who I side with but if you have tried any of these combinations, which do you like? X3


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